


Back To Her

by FatesFire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Love, Regret, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 21:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4681760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatesFire/pseuds/FatesFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leaving her was the biggest mistake he’d ever made.  </p>
<p>Soundtrack,  Ed Sheeran’s-One</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back To Her

**Author's Note:**

> J.K Rowling owns everything, I own nothing.

He stumbled drunkenly up the steps to the hall that would lead to her door.   The door he’d avoided for the last five years.  Things ended badly between them, and of course it was all his fault.  He was too big of a coward to admit that she was everything he’d ever wanted.  Too scared to let go of the expectations of his past.  Too afraid of what his father might have thought if he’d have lived to see the day. 

She didn’t cry when he left her, not in front of him at least.  At the time part of him was hoping she would throw herself on him and prevent him from walking out the door.  That she’d do something to stop him from the madness that deep in his heart he know he was feeling, but she was the brave one.  The one not afraid to face the unexpected.

Five years. 

He’d watched from afar.  He may have left London, but he never really left her behind.  She was famous and made the papers at least once a week.  At least once a week he’d seen her in the tabloid images of the Daily Prophet, The Quibbler, Witch Weekly.  He’d subscribed to them all, never admitting to himself that the only reason he did it was so that he could see her face. 

Draco thought back to the first article.  The one that reported their breakup.  It was at a ministry event, the first red carpet she’d attended without him in just over the year they’d been dating.  She was as lovely as ever, but he could see the sadness in her eyes as she tried to smile for the camera.  The image of her face forcing the smile and looking away quickly.  The moving image would look up briefly as if staring through his soul, before turning away.  He’d kept that one and looked at it almost daily for months, even after all the others that followed. 

Several months later there was an article in Witch Weekly about her promotion, she’d been awarded some kind of trophy for her work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the ministry and was being transferred to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  He was happy for her, it was what she’d always wanted.   She had some more light in her eyes in that picture, holding her plaque with pride as she smiled up at the camera.  He kept that one too.

About a half a year down the line she was being praised for her work on a secret mission that had uncovered a large group of dark wizards that had been responsible for some very unsavory treatment of muggles.  They’d been on the fringes of the magic world since the war and were trying to reform a new group of death eaters.  This image was of her shaking hands with the Minister of Magic.  As she smiled he could see the old Hermione again.  Proud, happy, self-assured.  Maybe leaving her was the best thing he’d ever done for her, maybe he had been holding her back.  That one was clipped and saved as well.

It wasn’t that Draco was sulking and living as a hermit.  He was out in the world, he even dated and hooked up with a witch here and there.  His own exploits were fodder for gossip and were sometimes etched in the pages of some of the less serious rags.  He’d been photographed with more than a few pretty women on his arm as he traveled the world.   Rome, Paris, Moscow, Egypt… Draco, the Malfoy heir, was living up to the world’s expectations of him as a playboy and otherwise useless waste of talent. 

He told himself he just hadn’t found his purpose yet as he hit 30 then 31, and 32 wasting away in world of partying, drinking, fucking.  It was all becoming a blur.  Still he checked his papers regularly, avoiding London as much as possible.   

It was 2 years ago when he first noticed that she’d fully moved on.   It was the first time she’d been photographed at a red carpet event with a man that wasn’t Harry or the Weasel.  He recognized him without having to read the print below.  Oliver Wood, now famous for his keeper record on Puddlemere United.  She sure had her thing for Quidditch Players.  He grimaced and watched as her photo smiled for the camera and turned back to smile at Wood brightly before repeating.   He didn’t know why he saved that one, perhaps it was because of how it twisted his stomach every time he looked at it.  Another reminder of a major Draco Malfoy fuck up.  He was feeling broken. 

A year ago her engagement was announced, followed by an insufferable photo of Wood flying directly down from his win at the World Cup and presenting her with a ring.  The surprise was evident on her face.  Beside it was another of her hand covering her smiling mouth before nodding yes emphatically.   Draco was glad that he decided not to go to the event.  He didn't think he'd have survived the heartbreak. 

Draco had drunk himself so ill that night that he attempted to duel a large group of rather shady Wizards in one of the more dodgy bars.  He was greatly outnumbered and out of his wits, which was why he was forced to spend a week at St Mungo’s being treated for a variety of hexes and jinxes that he could not in his drunken stupor fight off.   Of course THAT was the kind of thing that got him in the papers.  He wondered if she’d seen it.   

Here he was nearly a year later.  Drunk again after a news article about Hermione Granger.  This one announcing that her and Oliver Wood had parted ways amicably.  The engagement was off. 

_The engagement was off!_   Draco thought as he read the morning edition of the Prophet. 

As he went to place the clipped image in the drawer full of the pictures he’d collected through the years he started to go through them all, there were at least 30.  One by one he sorted through, sipping firewhiskey at 10:00 in the morning. He moved from one to the next delicately tracing the images of her face as he’d done countless times before.

At the bottom of the pile was the first newspaper clipping of Hermione Granger he’d ever clipped.  In it she was smiling brightly at her date, his arm snaking around her waist.  The recipient of the smile smirking back at her smugly as he pulled her in close to whisper in her ear, causing her to flush.

_Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger an item?_ Read the headline, followed by an article about the unlikely pair hooking up despite their shaky past. 

 Draco could hardly recognize his own face.  It had been so long since he’d felt the happiness exhibited in the photo.  His decision was made in that instant.   Not bothering to put the photos back in the drawer he apparated to just outside of Gringotts. 

He didn’t need to spend too much time searching through his vault to find it.   He’d been there often enough to look at it that he knew exactly where he’d find what he was looking for. 

Pocketing the small package he made a stop at the Leaky Cauldron, downing a couple more shots of firewhiskey to build his courage before making way to the place in London he’d been avoiding for so long. 

Here he was now.  Tipsy, standing outside of her door, feeling braver than he’d ever felt in his life.  He couldn’t think about the possibility that she wouldn’t want him.  He refused to look that far ahead because right now all he had was the one sliver of hope that she could give him his life back. 

He knocked on the door and waited for what felt like forever.   

As it slowly opened he looked up through the messy fringe of white-blond hair he hadn’t bothered to arrange in any way that morning. 

Her face was a hard mask.  If she was surprised to see him she made no indication that she was. 

They stood that way for a moment that stretched into an eternity.  The pain in his face was evident, he struggled between the shame at leaving her the way he did, and the sheer joy at seeing her in person for the first time in 5 years.  His heart felt like it might explode out of his chest. 

This was it, all or nothing…

“First, I must tell you I’ve been the most unmitigated and comprehensive ass.”

At that her lip quirked up, it was a line from her favorite movie.

“Why did you end things with Wood?” He asked quietly, huskily, the hope evident in his voice. 

“I didn’t love him,” she replied.  Straightforward, no malice, honest.

“Do you think you could love me again?”  His crystal grey eyes caught hers as he begged the question, it was a plea.  He was prepared to beg her forever, to surrender everything to her.   

“I never stopped Draco,” She responded quietly as a small tear, tracking the side of her cheek.  

At that he threw himself on his knees, right there in the hall, not even passing the archway into her flat.  He reached into his pocket, presenting her with the family heirloom.  A ring, the intricate carving of a small dragon etched in Goblin gold wrapped around a large diamond in the center. 

“Make me alive again Hermione, I’m nothing without you…my life… my life is nothing if I don’t have you. You are everything…”

She fell to her knees before he could continue, pulling his face to her own and tangling her fingers into his mussed hair.  The tears poured from her face as she kissed him, in that moment they felt whole again, the last 5 years fading away.  

He placed the ring on her finger and lifted her off the ground, she wrapped legs around him as he carried her over the threshold and into their new life. 


End file.
